


fill and then deflate

by reinre (cruxxite)



Category: Free!
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Merman!AU, No Angst, makoto is still scared of the ocean, makoto is the merman this time ohhohoho, mostly i guess i mean as fluffy as mermen get
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-07 20:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruxxite/pseuds/reinre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Makoto's solution to his fear comes in the form of beautiful tide pools, and eventually, is found in bottomless blue eyes. </p><p>Or; Mako makes a shitty merman, Rin is still protective, Haru has more emotions than he wants to let on, and Rei and Nagisa don't change no matter what setting they're in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i haVE SO MANY PLANS FOR THIS YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW EXCITED I AM  
> in this fic i ain't havin' any of that 'merman gets hurt, cared for in bathtub' or 'character a drowns, character b saves them and is also a merman.' no way. this is gonna be great ok trust me on this
> 
> i took the title from a stupid song ive been listening to for like five hours fiGHT ME (it'll make more sense later (i hope))

Makoto is afraid of the ocean at nighttime. 

This would not be a problem, in most cases. One could simply be told, “Don’t go to the ocean at nighttime,” and all would be well. 

This is not the same situation, considering the ocean is where he lives. He can’t very well avoid it. At least, not easily, and especially not conveniently. For a long time, he tied his wrist to a piece of coral close to the shore, where it was shallower, and slept there, trying his best to ignore the open sea behind him. But those were nervous days, fearful of human children coming to pull at his delicate tail and kick at his head. He didn’t mind humans. They were just insensitive, and didn’t bother trying to think about how much merpeople like himself had to put up with. 

Whatever.

Makoto had figured out a solution a few weeks ago. It took a while to get there, but once he did, it was fantastic. He felt like a genius. 

There was a cluster of tide pools a long way’s down the shoreline. Some of them were rough and grainy, but the largest one was fairly smooth, comfortable enough. A section of it was deeper than the rest, shadowed by a low overhang. When tides came in early, Makoto would rest in the shallow portion and sun himself in the fading light, listening to the roar of the sea. It was much more soothing to be outside than it was inside. When the first morning tide came up, Makoto would hop out of the pool and into the sea once more, spending the day with his family before retreating back to the tide pool when night began to fall. 

He’s quite proud of this system, and admired himself for coming up with it. Perhaps it was a little selfish of him, but he can take credit for things he thinks up once in a while, right? It confuses his siblings, and his parents as well, and it irritates most of the pod, but it was as close as he could get to just sleeping on land. 

Still, it’s frustrating, to say the least. Makoto _wants_ to sleep with everyone else. He misses his younger siblings when he has to hide himself away. It makes him feel even worse when he imagines them with nightmares, going to their parents to be shot down and told to go back to sleep without hardly any comfort at all. It’s a bit of a reassurance to know just how unlikely it was that his parents would do something like that, but it is still a terrible image. 

But doing this is much, much better than nights alone, shivering, hardly sleeping because there _must_ be something else in the water. If humans exist, and merpeople exist, then there must be more, right? And god, does that scare him. It’s still upsetting enough to have him slapping his tail against the water now and again in thought, even in the tide pool. He does so now, the sound a loud clap that startles him out of his own thoughts as if he didn’t expect it. Groaning in his vexation, he lets himself slide down so his head is just barely under the water; the stone is smooth where his back touches it. Makoto closes his eyes, listening to the sounds the water makes when he sways his tail. 

Suddenly he’s hearing shouts. They’re excited, and are accompanied by the tapping of wet feet on stones. His eyes dart open and he whirls so he can tuck himself under the overhang, head still close to the surface so he can watch for the humans. There are a few tide pools around here, but this one is perhaps the prettiest, and the smoothest. He isn’t all too surprised when those appendages of theirs appear on the edge of the pool. Three pairs of them, it seems. One of them leaves the ground for a second, pushing into the air a few times. What kind of movement it is, Makoto doesn’t know. He’s never seen humans fly before. The flying one moves away, and another pair of appendages follows, leaving the one last human. It hesitates, then dips the bottom of its appendages into the water before dropping in fully. 

Makoto swallows. He’s never been this close to a human before. He’s watched them from afar, sure, but they would never be able to see him like that. The human is barely an arm’s length away. If he slid in any farther and stretched his appendage, he might be able to touch Makoto. On the face. Those little finger things stretch, then curl as the human gets itself comfortable. The merman can’t move. He doesn’t want to stay under here, but he knows he doesn’t really have much of a choice. Really, he’d prefer the fresh air than that which he has to extract from the water. He always has, that isn’t going to change now, though the slight fear does make it a bit more appealing.

The human’s chest--do they call it that, too?--expands, like it’s taking a breath--do humans breathe?--then it’s shifting and _oh no oh no oh no it’s diving in deeper oh no oh gods no--_ they’re suddenly face-to-face, wide eyes meeting wide eyes. The human’s are the color Makoto sees when he dreams of drowning, the color he sees when he tries and fails to face his fear. They’re as deep as the sea they mirror. It blinks, eyes following the line of his chest to where skin turns scales and bubbles emerge from his mouth as if he made a sound of surprise. They do need to breathe, then, Makoto thinks off-handedly when the human uses its hands to pull itself to the surface. It hurries out of the pool, but stay on the edge, making itself shorter so it can peer down into the depths. Their gazes lock again. Makoto turns, trying to swim deeper, only to find there is no ‘deeper’ to swim and ends up making an awkward sort of circle. He curls in on himself, gnawing on his lip. But the human stays there, just... staring. Then it extends a hand.

How _obscene._

It’s a human, of course it doesn’t know... but jeez, can’t it make a gesture that isn’t that? Makoto feels his cheeks heating up in a fierce blush. Is it trying to help him out of the water or something? Maybe. It probably doesn’t mean the same thing to humans than it does to merpeople, but it’s still enough to have him avoiding the other’s eyes and keeping his hands at his sides. He swims up closer to the surface, trying to look around the edges of the pool for more people. He doesn’t want more to see him than necessary. The human turns its head away, looking around, then looks back to Makoto and shakes its head. Does that signal a negative to humans, too? Probably. He really hopes so, because he’s already bringing his head up above the surface of the smooth water, resting his hands on the floor of the pool. 

“ _Salve?”_

The human’s eyes widen. Makoto muses that he’ll just have to assume their facial expressions mean the same on land as they do underwater, and the look on his face--where did those other two humans come from? He squirms downwards, hiding not fully under the overhang, but in the shadow. 

They speak to each other. The original human nods, glancing into the tide pool and making a gesture. His fingers curl inward a few times. That, Makoto understands. He’s beckoning him. Trusting humans is a very bad decision, as any merperson would make quite clear, but really, what position is he in to refuse? So he raises his head once more. 

“ _Êtes-vous français?”_

There are three humans now, one with lighter hair, one with darker, and the first one with its black hair. They all give each other confused looks. 

“ _Deutsch?”_ No. 

 _“Español?”_ A look of recognition. 

“Perhaps...” 

The way the light-haired human’s eyes light up is an indication that was the right language. Now, if he could just get it right. “Is this it? You speak this?” 

“Ah, Haru-chan, do you hear that? He’s speaking to us!” 

“Yes, Nagisa, we can both hear,” the other tall one says. Then it, too, makes itself shorter to get closer to Makoto, holding out a hand. “Hello. I am Ryuugazaki Rei.” 

Makoto flicks his tail to back up, blushing again at the gesture. “Apologize, I am, um, now does not feel time correct?” 

Its head tilts to the side in confusion, and it lowers its hand. Makoto relaxes. “Do you have a name?” it asks. 

“Oh! I thought that yours class--no, that was not right, give me a hour--wait, no--I haven’t spoken Japanese in seasons,” Makoto tries, though his words sound choppy and awkward to his ears. He closes his eyes, sorting through the vocabulary he has, and figuring out the grammar, then speaking again once he remembers. “I thought Ryuugazaki Rei was your class. Social status. Not your name.” 

The human, Rei, appears thrilled. “How intriguing! I caught French, German, and Spanish among those languages you spoke.” 

“Yes,” Makoto says. This language hurts his tongue. “I know many languages. I thought humans spoke Latin--is that what you call it?” 

“Latin is a dead language,” the light-haired one butts in, a proud grin on his face, like he’s pleased with himself for knowing. “No one uses it anymore!” 

“Ah. My apologies.” Makoto gives what he hopes to be a soothing smile. “I took a moment to consider a translation, and the closest to my name is Tachibana Makoto. It is a sadness to meet you--ah, wait, pleasure! A pleasure. My pleasure.” 

The light-haired one laughs, shortening himself down, too. “You’re weird. That’s alright. I’m Hazuki Nagisa! And this is Nanase Haruka--I call him Haru-chan, though. He’s kinda quiet, so don’t mind him.” 

“Him? Are you all male?” Makoto asks, praying he doesn’t offend one with the question. 

“We are,” Rei informs him. “We are all male, using the pronouns of _he, him, his.”_  

“Rei-chan, you’re so formal!” Nagisa whines, reaching around the first one--Haruka--to push at Rei’s arm. Rei pokes the sticks on his face and blushes. 

Makoto turns to look at the sun. It’s close to setting, very close, and he wonders when these humans will be going home, as most normally leave at this time. 

“Are you trapped?” Haruka asks, then. 

Makoto blinks, but laughs a little sheepishly. “Ah, for now. I’m here on purpose, if that’s what you are asking.” 

“Why?” 

He grabs the stone on the edge of the pool, flicking up water with his tail. “I like it here,” he tells them, avoiding a direct answer. 

Haruka’s gaze is contemplating as he studies him, searching his face. His doubt is clear as the shallows, with curiosity to match it. ‘I don’t believe you, so why are you here?’ As if Makoto is going to answer that. No, he doesn’t even want to think of his fears right now. This is supposed to be his time for sleep, for relaxation. He does not reserve time in his evening to chat idly with humans. It’s a silly thought on its own: they aren’t exactly ‘chatting,’ and it’s far from idle. It’s fairly uncomfortable, at best, as is the silence between them now. 

Nagisa stretches upward again, at his full height. Makoto, unable to resist, especially with this opportunity, blurts out the question, “How are you doing that?” 

“Huh?” The blond blinks down at him. “What? Stretching?” 

Makoto shakes his head, then points at Haruka. “No, you were short like them. How did you make yourself tall again so quickly? Doesn’t it take years to grow?” 

The blank expression remains, then he laughs. “It’s crouching! See?” He demonstrates, moving to be short, then tall, then short, then tall again. Makoto watches the bend of his appendages with wide eyes. “We just bend our legs!” 

“Legs? That’s what they’re called?” 

Nagisa absolutely beams down at him. “Yes! They’re legs, and the part that bends is the knee, and this other bendy part is the ankle, and the bottom part is the foot!”

“Oh?” Makoto heaves himself up, dragging his body closer to where they’re... crouching. He examines the leg Nagisa holds out to him curiously. The boy is wobbly, holding onto Rei’s shoulder for support. “What is it called when you move? Or when you fly for a second and land again?” 

“Okay, so, you mean, like walking?” He moves. Makoto nods. “That’s walking!” One leg moves forward, the foot planting firmly on the ground. “That’s a step, and this,” he does that flying-then-landing thing, “is jumping!” 

Rei pats Nagisa’s shoulder. “Nagisa, don’t overwhelm him like that. It’s getting dark anyway, we should go back!” 

The shorter crouches once more. “I wanna stay and talk to Mako-chan!” he whines, and the merman in question starts at the name. It sounds fitting, in a way. He likes the way it sounds. 

Makoto gives them a smile. “I’ll be here tomorrow, I suppose, if you’d like to come by again,” he offers, “but please don’t tell anyone about me being here.” 

“Can we really? You wouldn’t mind?” Nagisa gasps in delight. 

Makoto smiles again. “I wouldn’t mind, as long as I can ask questions about you, too.” 

“Yes!” 

He watches as Rei pulls Nagisa away, finding the pair incredibly endearing. Makoto hasn’t met new people since that pod came with the current, months ago. With vibrant red hair, they were hunting for a new place to live, after their reef had died, all fish gone. A pair of them had stayed when the female of the two had fallen in love with someone in the pod here, a merman with a vibrant orange tail that couldn’t be forgotten and could be seen from miles away in clear water and a booming, cheerful voice that could be heard at the same distance. Of course, the mermaid’s brother had stayed with her, and had found Makoto looking for his sibling after they’d ventured off and offered to help him. The new guy had spotted them quickly, his eyesight a marvel...  

Someone clears their throat. 

The first human is still here. He’s gazing down at him where he floats in the tide pool, a blank expression on his face but curiosity in his eyes. Makoto meets his gaze, silently, steadily. He hopes this isn’t a human way of challenging him. Unlike the legends he’s heard whispered on ships as they sail late at night, of mermaids coaxing men to their deaths with beautiful faces and mesmerizing voices, those are the Eastern merpeople. The Western ones are far less violent, and do little harm at all, instead opting to stay in deeper waters and avoid humans. Some boys, however, are too beautiful to resist, such as this one. A town was built up beside it, years and years and years after the merpeople made this their home. The discovery of them changed little about their way of living, except that they were a bit more willing to be closer to the surface, or seen sunning. 

The human is the first to blink. “That’s a nice color.” 

Makoto chirps, a sound of communication below the waters, and flicks his tail. “What, this? Thank you! Green is a pretty common shade, though.” 

“I like it,” Haruka says. There’s a pregnant pause before he speaks again. “I should leave.” 

“It’s getting dark. Humans don’t have very good vision like that, do they?” Makoto asks, voice gentle. 

Haruka shrugs. “I have no one to get back to.” 

How strange. Makoto’s head tilts a bit, brow furrowing. “Humans have families, don’t they?” 

“Yes,” Haru says, kicking his feet in the water, looking down at where his nail picks at the grainy stone. “Mine are elsewhere.” 

Makoto makes a noise of understanding, and doesn’t press it. If the human wants to elaborate, he will. But he’s quiet, flicking bits of sand into the water. The merman has nowhere to go, and it would only make it more awkward for him to go deeper, because he would know that Haruka was still there, and the silence would just be fairly uncomfortable for both of them. 

“Well,” Makoto says, to break it open, “from what I observe on the docks, humans tend to get more irritable at night, and fight more often.” 

“That’s the docks,” he mutters. “The neighborhood is calmer.” But still, he gets to his feet, looking down at the merman again. Makoto gives him what he hopes is a warm smile. He likes this human. He’s soft-spoken, and seems like he would probably be a gentle man, quiet and careful in his compassion, but compassionate all the same. 

Haruka’s already moving away--his _legs_ are moving, he is _walking_ \--but he pauses, stepping back over. He perks up from where he’d been sinking back into the pool when Haru speaks. “Why are you really in this tide pool?” 

Makoto swallows, and looks away. “If you come back, maybe I’ll tell you then. Sleep well, Haru.”  

The human hesitates, then finally walks away, back to the beach, steps cautious on the rough rocks. Makoto watches him leave, and he finds himself hoping he’s going to come back with the other two. Nagisa and Rei. They’re eager, in different fashions. Nagisa expresses it without thought, bouncing and happy and unreserved. Rei, on the other hand, is calmer; he takes a moment to analyze, to think, then act. They’re so different, but so similar. Perhaps the pair is just that: a pair, a couple, a _thing._ He wonders if Haru has a significant other, someone who’s seen the ‘Nagisa’ part of him, someone who knows his nooks and crannies and what’s hidden in the darkest parts of his mind.

 _Makoto,_ he chides himself, _these are humans. Can a merman and humans really be friends enough to talk about your lives? Of course not._

It’s easiest, he decides, to just go to sleep, and think about it when he isn’t so tired. 

 

-•-

 

“Okay, wait, wait, lemme get this straight,” the redhead says, swimming a lap around the brunet again. “You’ve been doing this tide pool thing for how long?”  

“A few months. Rin, you _knew_ this.”  

“I probably wasn’t listening. Okay, so you met humans. And you _talked_ to the humans. Why the hell did you talk to humans?”  

Makoto shrugs his shoulders, sighing, bubbles trailing from the corners of his lips. “They saw me anyway. It isn’t a big deal, Rin, calm down. The people here aren’t like they were where you came from.”  

“Hey, fuck you, Gou told you about that reef, I’m not just making that up, that place was the _shit,_ ” Rin defends. “But seriously, Mako, this is a totally different deal. Totally different. You’re an idiot.” 

Makoto smiles and ruffles Rin’s hair. The latter shouts indignantly, even though the water keeps it from settling anyway, and the hand had almost no effect. “Yes, maybe I am,” Makoto agrees, “but it’s lonely out there. The company was nice.” 

“Y’know where it isn’t lonely? Here. With the rest of us.” 

The smile fades. “You know why I can’t.” 

Rin sighs, running a hand through his hair that sways in the slight current. “Yeah, sorry. It’s just--you remember what happened. To my dad. I don’t like what you’re doing with them, that’s all.” 

“What am I doing with them?”  

“You’re interacting, that’s what. I repeat: I don’t like it.”  

“You’re being paranoid,” Makoto chastises. “They’re probably not much older than we are--human-years. They’re relatively harmless.”  

“What did you say their names were again?” Rin asks, crossing his arms and studying a stray weed that drifts past to hide his interest. 

Makoto pretends he doesn’t notice it, though he wants to. “Haru, Rei, and Nagisa.”  

“And you say they’re all guys?”  

“You’re one to talk.”  

“Shut the fuck up!”  

Makoto laughs. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic got an insane amount of attention in five days. more than any of my other fics have, that have been posted for weeks!!! and halfway to 100 kudos?? hella. u guys rock.

“Makoto talked to humans.”

“Rin!”

The older merman gives Makoto a stern look. “Makoto. We have had this discussion before--”

The two children, however, interrupt before he can finish. “You talked to people?” and “Ooh, what are they like, tell us, tell us!” are out of the two mouths in an instant; their narrow tails propel them forward and they latch onto Makoto’s arms, eyes wide and smiles even wider. He shoots his friend a glare and then shifts it into a smile for the twins, if slightly exasperated.

His father isn’t quite finished with him yet. He pulls the younger siblings off their brother, giving them a stern but gentle push toward the reef area. “Go play with your friends,” he tells them, “I need to talk with your brother.” 

“But _Papa_!” they whine, even as Rin helps guide them away.

Makoto bows his head. The glare his father gives him is serious, unsmiling; he ends up biting his lip and looking everywhere that isn’t the merman. “Dad, I just--”

“Don’t underestimate humans." 

He looks up quickly, eyes wide. “I’m not!” he gasps. “I’m not, I swear. Trust me. I won’t let them cause me any harm.”

A sigh has minuscule bubbles slipping from the corners of wrinkled lips. “I’m just worried about you, that’s all. In tide pools like that, you can’t swim away. You’re trapped, and next thing you know you’re in a net and they’ve got the sharp things and they’re looking at your insides."

“Dad!”

“What I’m trying to get at here is, don’t trust them. Ever. Sleep here tonight.”

Makoto freezes. All the sounds of the ocean seem heightened at that moment, every wave and every crash above the surface of the water and every chirp and whistle and hum in the distance. They’re all such little sounds, seeming so far away but in hardly a fraction of the whole ocean. There’s more out there. Screaming deafening screams and shrieking through darkness, deep enough that the pressure renders him almost immobile, perfect prey for monsters with razors for teeth and flesh with oil that burns away flesh and--

“Dad, I can’t, please, don’t make me sleep here, please, I’m fine, I’ll scare them away, I’ll make sure they don’t talk to me again, please don’t make me sleep out here, I can’t, you know I can’t, I’ll get Rin, he’ll tell you, I just can’t,” he rambles desperately.

Another sigh, paired with a thoughtful glance to where Rin plays with the twins. Makoto wrings his hands, fearful of his father’s decision. He knows that the merman just wants what’s best for him, and what’s safest, but he doesn’t understand the terror Makoto faced each night he spent here.

His father hums. “Why don’t you take Rin with you there tonight? He’ll be able to protect you.”

“I can protect myself!” he argues. “I don’t need him babysitting me!”

“You obviously do, if you thought it a good idea to show yourself to humans, and talk to them.”

Makoto groans, tossing his head back in frustration. “I’m fine on my own, Dad!”

“My decision is final, or you sleep here.”

This is absolutely ridiculous.

 

-•-

 

The tide pool is a beautiful, shining scarlet, reflecting the sunset.

It’s a few shades lighter and a few shades oranger than the hair and tail of the second merman in the pool with the first. Combined, it’s merperson Christmas.

Red sinks head-first into the deep end. “This is fucking insane. I can’t believe you sleep here every night. I feel like it’s gonna close up and squeeze me to death.”

Green hums in reply, smiling small. He’s obviously far more relaxed here than he is when he’s in the ocean. Rin notices. He chooses not to say anything about it, to his friend or to himself. Putting it into solid words, be them thought or voice, makes them seem much more real. To distract himself, he reluctantly asks about the humans.

“Well, like I said, their names are Haru, Nagisa, and Rei. Nagisa has light hair, Rei is kind of blue-ish-purple, I guess? It’s not quite black, but not brown, or grey, or anything else like that. Haru has black hair and blue eyes. He doesn’t talk much, from what I gathered yesterday. Nagisa talks a lot, and he's really chipper about it, and Rei is more toned down, but I personally think he’s just as eager to see me again as Nagisa had been. Haru, I don’t know. He might come back. Maybe.” Makoto’s mind drifts to what he’d told the brunet the day before. _If you come back, maybe I’ll tell you then_. He said ‘if.’ So that’s something. And maybe Haru won’t come at all.

Three figures climb up the rocks to where the tide pools lie in wait. Rin sees them, and perks up. His tail flicks in the water agitatedly. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches glimpse of the other’s nails lengthening to points. He bares his teeth, all sharp, unlike Makoto's, who only has pointed molars and canines. Like this, Rin is menacing (even though Makoto knows better--just the other day he’d seen the merman caught in a surprising current and dragged away yelping curses).

“Mako-chan!”

Rin’s threatening face wavers for a moment, and he turns to give Makoto an incredulous glare. Makoto shrugs and mouths the word _Japanese_ , then he waves at the trio.

Nagisa sees Rin first. “Mako-chan, you brought your friend!”

“Ah, yes, this is Matsuoka Rin.” Makoto nudges the merman in question, glancing over. If glares were daggers and looks could kill, he’d be stabbing each of them repeatedly, probably all above the shoulders. “He’s not fond of the idea of me talking to humans--”

“If you fucking touch him, I will tear out and trade your fingernails with your teeth,” he growls. “Don’t fucking doubt me. I swear to the gods, lay a hand on him and I will rip it off."

A threat like this is nothing to Makoto, who’s heard it all before, serious or not. But Nagisa, Rei, and Haru, on the other hand... The former two look fearful, glancing between Rin and each other. Even Haru blinks and swallows. Rei takes a step backward.

Makoto turns to Rin, but doesn’t say anything. His anger is justified. When his father went out hunting with a few others, venturing from the group with another to go after a school of tuna. The pair were both caught in a net while swimming through the school to grab some for the rest of the pod. Rin’s father struggled and fought; he was killed because of it, while the other merman was tied and taken to shore as some sort of prize. He was a close friend of Makoto’s, a kind old soul that cared more about others than he did himself. Makoto learned a lot from him. The fear humans have of the unknown is worse than their curiosity, the trait that has them tearing merpeople open, poking with shining tools through their insides.

Rin yanks him down below the surface of the water, earning a startled yelp from the owner of the wrist he’d pulled. “Hey, are you alright? You got really pale. Do you want me to scare them off? I can do that, you know I can,” Rin offers. Makoto shakes his head, taking a few deep breaths. He calms himself down, tests a false smile, then returns to the edge of the tide pool, the smile pasted on his lips reassuring.

“Sorry about him. He’s not good with people, I guess,” he says. His voice almost cracks. Almost. “How was your day?”

Nagisa brightens before the others, who still look a bit uncomfortable. “It was so slow! I couldn’t wait to get back here! We didn’t know if you only came here late, or if you were here all the time, but I had a lot of homework that Rei made me finish more of before we left!” He pouts.

Rei adjusts his face-sticks. “I told you to finish your homework at lunch.”

“But I wanted to talk to you, not work!”

A blush lights his cheeks. Makoto laughs a little when Rei quickly changes the subject, “Anyway, we really have been eager to ask you some questions about your life, anatomy, native language, family, reproduc--”

Rin makes a noise in his throat. Rei stops mid-word. Haru laughs a bit through his nose.

“Makoto, you don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to,” Rin tells him quietly, and Makoto smiles. The last time he’d seen his friend so hot-blooded like this had been when a merman from a migrating pod had flirted with his younger sister. He could still remember the look on the guy’s face when Rin reached for his throat. When not eating or above water, grabbing a merperson’s throat meant very little, considering it wasn't in use, but having those teeth so close to your face couldn’t be very ataractic. 

Something moves out of the corner of his eye, and Makoto sees Haruka sit on the stone and dangle his appen--feet into the water. The new word kindles his interest yet again, and he leaps into conversation with the question of, “What’s a fire?” (Nagisa adds on in a muttered singing voice, “and why does it, what’s the word, burn?” which goes ignored because of either lack of understanding or lack of giving a shit). Rei answers most of them, though Nagisa answers some, as well. Haru even explains some, usually quickly and simply. 

(“If our teacher were here,” Nagisa says to Makoto before he goes with the other two to take a moment and get some dinner, “she would probably say a quote I read online yesterday, something about explaining and understanding and being good at it? Einstein. Yeah.”)

They learn about him, too. When Makoto learns about track, they learn about hunting tournaments. When the mermen learn about roads and cars, the humans learn about the way merpeople use currents for quick travel. There’s hardly anything about the tail that they don’t know, but Rin hadn’t heard anything about legs, so they have some fun explaining everything about legs and feet and walking and jumping and running. Not that Rin had _wanted_ to know, obviously, he was just bored and wanted to say something, because they were having all the fun, even though it looked childish and he was more mature than to partake in conversations about wheels.

Then Rei and Nagisa say they should be going, because even though it’s a Friday, Rei’s mother expects them home. Haruka doesn’t know what to feel with Rin there, staring at him like he’s going to whip out a gun and shoot them both then himself (but not before the addition of a few innocent children, maybe some mothers or senior citizens, too). Awkward? Uncomfortable? Edgy? In all honesty, very little can make Haruka feel anything worth giving a name to, but even with Makoto’s crystal-clear voice chattering about dolphins in the background of his thoughts, those gleaming red eyes are piercing his very soul, and they don’t like what they see.

So he drawls an excuse and gets to his feet, shaking off water droplets--more so they don’t make him colder than to get himself dry--and heading back to the beach. He pauses, turning his head to the side as if looking at the beach, to glance back at Makoto. He’s resting his chin on his palm and his elbow on the rocks and his gaze lingers on Haruka. The other merman reaches up to ruffle his hair, and Makoto turns to him, grinning cheerfully and saying something Haru can’t hear. It takes another moment for the boy to move again, and when he does, this time, he doesn’t look back.

 

-•-

 

“Holy fucking shit, Makoto. You’re in way over your head.”

“Don’t exaggerate, Rin. I know what I’m doing, trust me.”

“I do trust you. I don’t trust them!”

“You were talking to them just as much as I was. It was a conversation. You were a part of it.”

“A conversation is different than whatever the fuck you were doing with that Haruka guy! Gods, you were so obvious!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. What does Haru have to do with this?”

Rin rolls his eyes melodramatically in his exasperation. “You two were practically eye-fucking that whole time. Don’t even deny it.”

“How do you even know that term?” Makoto asks, as much curious as he is trying to change the subject (he had no intentions of banging the guy via eye contact, but if the ocean became anything like Haruka’s irises, he’d never fear it again).

His friend huffs, not fooled. “Not the point,” he states. “Just. Ugh. Mako, can you please listen to me, for once in your life? Stop coming here. I’ll help you find a new tide pool, even if it’s farther away. It was cool to learn about the humans’ culture, I guess, but--”

“You met them!” Makoto’s tone is still fairly light, but this has clearly turned into one of their rare arguments. They almost never fight. They disagree sometimes, sure, but they end up shrugging it off. Arguments such as these are very, very few, and just as far between. “You met them, Rin, and you can still tell me they’re dangerous?”

“They’re lying to you!” he snaps. “They’re trying to get you to trust them, until you end up with that unbreakable strand around your wrist and they put something under your skin and it’s going to be my fault for not convincing you to leave this where it is!”

“Is that what you think? Really?” Makoto’s voice is calm, now laced with worry. “Rin, it wouldn’t be your fault. If it ever happened--which it won’t--it’d be my fault. You’d have nothing to do with it!”

Rin groans, covering his face with his hands. “Look. I. Let’s talk about this later. I’m fucking exhausted. You made me talk for too long.”

The other tosses him a small smile. “You talk that much anyway.”

“Shut up. If I gotta spend the night in this puddle with you we might as well get comfortable.” With this, Rin jerks his tail slightly to propel him a little to the deeper part, at which point he gazes up at Makoto expectantly. Makoto takes a last breath of the fresh air, then dives down, tucking his tail up to his chest while Rin curls protectively around him in a way he hasn’t since they were children.

 

-•-

 

The days have gone by quite slowly. Rin accompanies Makoto more often than not, now, and he still hasn’t warmed up to the humans. Haruka doesn’t mind. He’s just happy he can see Makoto. It feels to him like the green-scaled merman knows him better than he knows himself.

The house is far too still and far too quiet for Haruka. It was strange to think this, for him. He was accustomed to the silence. To being alone. But now it felt uncomfortable, almost strained. Nagisa is with Rei, though, and Rei’s house isn’t a long walk from here, so he decides it would be best to just go there, even if all he does is listen to them talk and bicker.

After tossing a light jacket over his shoulders, Haruka steps out, not bothering to lock the door behind him. It's a bit too brisk out for a coat this thin, but he's already a few meters down the street, and can't find the will to turn around and get something warmer. The sky is clear apart from a few wispy clouds, the moon almost full and shining silver light on the street, mingling with the yellow-gold luster of the street lamps. Even Haruka has to admit that it’s a beautiful walk, even taking a moment to crouch and scratch a white kitten under its chin, just so he can enjoy it for a moment longer.

Rei answers the door, giving him a smile. Nagisa seems relaxed, perhaps because of all the schoolwork that’s scattered over the desk in Rei’s room that’s filled in the blond’s bubbly handwriting. Haruka drops onto the floor, leaning on the wall with a good view of the bed. Rei sits there, his back against the wall there, and Nagisa drapes himself over Rei’s lap (which has a visible blush spreading up the latter’s face). It’s a nice environment at this time of night, when Nagisa isn’t quite so buoyant and Rei is re-accustomed to Nagisa’s attitude. They’re good company.

They talk for a long time, from school to friends to the recent influx of young girls confessing to Haru out of the blue for no apparent reason. Of course, the conversation smoothly ends up at Makoto.

“You know,” Rei muses, “in original legends, merpeople most often charmed sailors, then lured them to their untimely deaths.”

Nagisa perks up. “Ooh, do you think Mako-chan’s gonna try to kill us? Or his friend Rin? I think Rin would be more likely to do the killing, if either of them did.”

Haruka hums. “I don’t think he wants to kill us,” he says. “I think he just wants to know about humans. Don't you see his expression when you explain things? Even when Nagisa was going on about stubbing his toe?”

“I’m sure _you_ see it,” Nagisa teases. “You never stop looking at him!”

“Mm.” Haruka looks down and picks at the carpeting. “Don’t be stupid. I don't stare at him.”

“I’m sorry to say this, but it is fairly blatant,” Rei adds, a smile pulling at his lips.

Nagisa looks up at his classmate. “I bet Haru-chan has a crush!”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!” Haruka says, “And I don’t like him. That’d be idiotic. He’s not even human.”

Nagisa rolls onto his stomach. Rei shifts a little to adjust. “So what? You could be like a storybook! Like, like, that one movie, um, with the mermaid princess and the prince?”

“The Little Mermaid?” Rei suggests.

“Yeah! You guys could be like The Little Mermaid! That’d make you the prince, Haru-chan!”

Haruka rolls his eyes. “In the original story, the mermaid dies and turns into sea foam, and the prince marries someone else. And the mermaid in that story gets legs with magic. Makoto doesn’t have legs.”

“Not yet!”

“Makoto isn’t going to get legs. He gets to live in the ocean. Why would he give that up? I don’t think I’d want to interact with anyone who would,” he adds, a touch disdainfully. 

At this, they fall silent. Haruka sighs, checking the time. If he leaves now, he can give Nagisa and Rei some time to themselves, since Rei’s family is probably asleep. He would probably prefer going home than hearing them later--yeah, he’s made up his mind. Excusing himself and thanking Rei for having him, he begins the walk home.

The sky is even darker now, the stars seeming brighter, the moon seems fuller. Perhaps it’s because less lights are on, or because those feathery clouds have drifted away.

Or perhaps it’s because he’s thinking about someone.

His grandmother always did say that things look more beautiful when you think you’re in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAHA RIN YOU FUCKIN TATTLETALE
> 
> also i rly rly like Haru the Secret Hopeless Romantic dont look at me


End file.
